Road Rights and Bicycle Advocacy

When the Cop Says Stop

What do you do when you know your area's bike laws, but the police don't?

bob mionske

And that brings us to our second issue-what should cyclists who find themselves in similar situations do? That's not an easy question to answer. In Bicycling & the Law, I wrote that:

"Gaining the right to the road was the cycling cause of the late nineteenth century; securing that right will be the cycling cause of the early twenty-first century."

What happened to Tony and Ryan from the moment the Deputy first decided to say something to them is a real-world example of the challenge cyclists face in securing their right to the road. For most of us, I suspect it's easier to just quietly comply with a law enforcement officer's misguided attempts to enforce laws that don't exist. Sure, we know the officer is wrong, but do we really want to go to jail to make that point, instead of wherever it is we happen to be going at that moment?

The problem is, if everybody acquiesces to a violation of our rights, do we still have the right? I would argue that unless the right is exercised, it doesn't exist. Therefore, when a law enforcement officer is enforcing laws that don't exist, it is incumbent upon us to stand up for our rights.

But how do we do that without triggering a beatdown and a trip to jail? I think it will depend upon finding a middle way between disobeying an officer's order and acquiescing to a violation of your rights. On the one hand, cyclists shouldn't think that the lesson from Tony and Ryan's experience is that cyclists can make an on-the-spot decision as to whether an order is lawful or not, and thus, whether or not an order should be obeyed. As we saw with Tony and Ryan, if an officer believes that you are not complying with his orders, that can have potentially deadly results, even though the officer is wrong. On the other hand, cyclists shouldn't have to quietly acquiesce to violations of their rights by law enforcement. Hopefully, law enforcement officers will familiarize themselves with the laws they are enforcing, and if they are unsure of the law, have the humility to simply accept that they don't know what the law is-and then educate themselves on what the law actually is, before attempting to enforce something that may not, in fact, be the law. Likewise, cyclists can choose that middle way between acquiescence and disobeying an order, by stopping when asked, but standing up for their rights, respectfully but firmly, and accepting that the price of defending our right to the road may mean accepting a citation now and beating it in court later.

Now, as I said at the beginning of this story, Tony called me because he was looking for a lawyer; true to his word, he intended to sue the arresting officers. And as I said, I hooked him up with Steve Magas, a well-known Ohio bicycle attorney. Among Steve's many accomplishments in the practice of law, he was the attorney representing cyclist Steve Selz, in the Trotwood v. Selz case that established that Ohio cyclists cannot be in violation of the impeding traffic statute if they are traveling at a reasonable speed for a cyclist. He was also instrumental in getting Ohio's "Better Bicycling Bill" passed; this was the bill that, among other things, codified the Trotwood v. Selz ruling into the "impeding traffic" statute. Steve has agreed to take Tony's case, and is currently awaiting a response while investigating a civil action in the case. With Steve's background in establishing cyclists' right to the road in Ohio, the case promises to be "arresting."